Track Listing

1. That Song
2. Private Radio
3. True
4. Better Life
5. The Something Special
6. Broken Record
7. Lifetime
8. Manthem
9. Break Up Song
10. Streetlight Serenade (To No One)
11. Late Bloomer
12. No Comply
13. Gene

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #44662 in Music
• Released on: 2001-05-28
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
As the third track on How I Spent My Summer Vacation makes abundantly clear, The Bouncing Souls are "True Believers", utterly uncompromising stalwarts of punk. By "punk", they do not mean the art-school flamboyance or anarcho-posturings of the Sex Pistols, or the heartfelt, in-your-face ragings of Henry Rollins and Black Flag. Rather, this is the simple peacetime punk of kids with energy to spare. It's about sunny days, pretty girls, BMX bikes and playful pogo-ing. It's about loneliness, alienation and the desperate conviction of teenage love. And, above all, it's about music as a force for good. The Bouncing Souls deliver a positivist, anthemic pop that's specifically designed to raise depressed spirits, as evinced lyrically by the two openers, "That Song" and "Private Radio" and the closing "Gone". In this respect, they have much in common with Green Day and Offspring but they carefully avoid the deliberate frivolity of those bands, evidently aiming to reflect the lives and feelings of their fans, rather than become rock & roll personalities themselves. Unfortunately, this realism makes How I Spent My Summer Vacation increasingly samey and inconsequential as the tracks pass. But in short bursts it is what it intends to be--great fun. --Dominic Wills

Customer Reviews

Brilliant
For me, a must have CD, all the tracks are excellent with the stand outs being 'True Believers', 'Manthem' and 'Streetlight Serenade'.

If you've never heard the Bouncing Souls before, take a chance and get this CD, it is their best so far.

grrreat!
this, just a matter of opinion, i prefer "anchors aweigh" to "how i spent my summer vacation" but there are certain tracks on ...summer vacation, that really stand out, in my mind, as brilliant, such as true believers, manthem, gone and the opening track that song. 'manthem', being the first souls song i ever heard (tony hawks pro skater 4) will always be one of my favourite songs, because it introduced me to the bouncing souls, and because, it's just brilliant.
although i prefer other souls albums to this one, even if this is the last one you buy, you should deffinately have it, it's just that good

Didn't float my boat
'Great Pop punk for the summer' said the review I read. Sounds good I thought. Its on Epitaph, even better I thought. So I parted with some of my hard earned cash and bought it.

I tried, I really did. I wanted to like it. But theres something not quite right. I can't put my finger on it, but this album just isn't for me. There are some cracking tracks, like 'True believers' and 'Gone' and theres essentially nothing wrong with the other tracks but it just didn't have that certain something.

I'm not saying don't buy it. It just wasn't for me.